In a yellow Manhattan, Anna Whomever is not surprised that Ping is gone, and she and Weepy McWeepersons are the last roommates standing. Miz Shoes speculates that in two more episodes, that room will be empty. For now though, the Nameless One and the One Who Cries ALL the Time are bonding. Jesus is going to show he deserves to be here, gosh darn it. Jesse has to come out. That’s what my notes say. Come out swinging? Come out with something amazing? Come out with a bon mot? Whatever. Mila and Maya are recreating the mirror scene between Harpo and Groucho. Or they’re just sitting side by side working on their grim bobs and red lipstick. May/la speculates that they are competitors because they are so similar.

On the runway, Heidi says that the challenge this week will be to tell Mila and Maya apart. Then she says that the hint is that Mila has immunity and Maya doesn’t. The sewing challenge will be to design a look for a Fashion Week gala. Their models will be some inspiring women. Lisa Walker, VP of Innovation for Campbell’s Soup defines the challenge. Campbell’s Soup is a sponsor of Go Red For Women, a women’s heart health not-for-profit. The Go Red For Women Gala is a big deal and top models and celebrities walk the runway in red dresses by top designers. For a gimmick, it’s ok. The Project Runway designers have to use red, Campbell’s branded fabric or create their own version of the Campbell’s logo and make a dress to wear to this event for one of these 13 randomly sized/shaped women whose lives have been impacted by heart disease. Actually she said that the women had been impacted, and one supposes that’s true in a literal and grammatically correct way, but Miz Shoes prefers her sentence structure. The winner of the challenge will have their design sold as a limited-edition on the Project Runway web site. The winner will also get to be the model’s date at the gala.

Jennifer tells Ben that her heart stops so she has a pacemaker. Jay’s model was dead for two minutes, and he just cries and cries at the drama of it all. Seth Aaron is working with Rose, who wants something “classy and sassy”. Jesus weeps with joy to find out that his model is “tiny” and so he can make pleats. Mil/ya drones in the nasal, flat and affectless way that all the grim Edith Head clones speak, that she has immunity but that, Wow. What if she could. Win two. In a. Row. Beep. That. Would. Be. Awesome. Beep. Tisha and Anthony both fan themselves, and swear that they won’t make each other cry any more than will get them air time.

One day, $100 at Mood. There are bins of Cambell’s red fabric all over Mood, or they can use other shades of red. Emilio is going to make a short cocktail dress. Jesse is wearing Logan’s old knit cap. Janeane complains that these are real women, not models and so she can’t make a pageant dress in ten hours because the seams take longer to sew when you have to make something bigger than a doll dress. May/la is inspired by the shape of the heart, so she’s going to make another sweetheart neckline. Anna Whomever is going to trace the Campbell’s logo onto red chiffon, using a darker red marker. She claims that this is because she’s been a printmaker for the last four years. Jonathan is happy to be sewing for a real woman using Campbell’s Soup branded fabric. Amy is having a hard time with the slippery fabric she’s using. Oh, honey, Miz Shoes feels your pain. Miz Shoes has tried to sew charmeuse before.

At the model fittings, Amy still hasn’t managed to get the chiffon onto the charmeuse. Anna Whomever is going to create an empowering experience, whatever that means. Anthony says that the other designers have never sewn for real women. Weepy’s model won’t shut up about how she’s had open heart surgery, and look at her, can you believe it? Blah blah blah. Shut up and let the woman pin. And then Weepy’s dress falls in a bucket of water that just happens to be sitting under the ironing board for no apparent reason, and she has to use a blow dryer and whine about her sad sack life and luck. My notes say “non-event”. (Sort of like the entire episode, frankly.)

Tim’s walkabout: Jesse is keeping it simple because his model is “full-figured” (designer speak for built like a small refrigerator) and he’s going to give the little red dress some interest with a little white jacket. Tim says that he’d better have a knock-out jacket because without that, Jesse will have nuthin’. Mil/ya or May/la says that she’s working with ivory and red taffeta and that the model is a “tough fit” (designer speak for not built like a drinking straw). Jesse’s dress is fitted and shows some cleavage. May/la is creating a swoopy, drape-y heart shaped swag across her model’s chest. Amy still hasn’t finished her foundation. Her dress exposes her model’s surgery scars like a badge of courage. (Amy, for those of you playing Project Runway Buzzword Bingo along at home, has facial piercings.) Seth Aaron has made a draped Grecian thing. It knocks Tim’s sensible brogues off, and in a bad way. Seth Aaron! he exclaims, I would never have expected this from you. Seth Aaron is not stupid. Seth Aaron abandons the look the second Tim turns away. Weepy is still whining about not being able to make a gown in one day.

Day of show and the men are all wearing twee bow ties and faux hawks. ALL of them. Except Jesus, who is wearing a scarf. Anthony says how horrible it would be to be one of their own models, being all struck with heart disease and shit, and now you gotta come out and have Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Heidi Klum tell you that your designer has also made you look awful, too. Someone in the workroom says that things are looking more cooter than couture. At least, that’s what my notes say. Anna Whomever is rushed. Mil/ya and her model are thrilled with their gown, a red shiny thing with a giant white star inset around the hip, and other stars else where. Emilio snarks that it looks like a cheap flag, and Miz Shoes says that isn’t far from the mark. More catty talk behind each other’s backs. Running around, irons hissing, designers spitting steam. Finally, it’s time for the show.

Tonight’s judges are NinaGarcia, Michael Kors and Georgina Chapman, one of the founders of Marchessa, and so a legitimate judge who might actually say something meaningful.

Jonathan has made something in a deep tomato-soup red, not the kitchy red of the soup can itself. It has tiers, and reminds me of the Monique Lhuillier that Drew Barrymore wore to the SAGS, but with a couple more tiers. Emilio has done a strapless mini. May/la’s dress has that swag/swoop/heart shaped thing and it looks from the couch to be a wee bit Wonder Womany and a wee bit window treatment at the Hollywood Western Musical Saloon. Amy’s chiffon has finally been sewn onto the foundation, and it is a very pretty goddess gown. Jesus has made something very short and very tight and it has rhinestone straps. It is every bit as horrifying as it sounds. Anna Whomever’s short version of a goddess gown is NOT flattering. Someone has sent out a sweetheart neckline and a train. Jesse’s little red dress is covered by a great little white jacket. There is something about the way this guy uses color and cut so that what looks like a trim or an accent is revealed to be a full under layer with interesting details. He can be a pill, and not in the endearing way that Christian was, but there’s something there. Ben has done something using gold, and it looks a little Wonder Woman around the bodice, too. Mil/ya’s giant stars elicits an all caps and underlined “GACK” in the handwritten notes. Janeane made an asymmetrical bubble hem. We’ve never seen that before, and hope never to again. She’s made a silk flower out of the branded fabric. Seth Aaron has put a black skirt on that draped bodice and his model works it. It may be a bit short.

Mil/ya and May/la, Anna Whomever, Amy, Jesse and Jesus are the top and bottom designers. Mil/ya says that in researching the Campbell’s dossier, she gravitated to the star icon. Georgina, inexplicably, says that it made her smile, that it was fun and classic. This woman started Marchessa? NinaGarcia says that it is a brilliant incorporation of the star. Really? Has NinaGarcia started smoking crack again? Jesse says that he tried to make something that worked with his model’s body. Michael Kors says, really? because it looks like a majorette costume to him. NinaGarcia says that the neckline is beautiful and that better fabric would have helped. Georgina snarks about white at the waist, but she loved May/la’s clown suit, so what does she know.

Michael Kors tells Jesus that he has hit the Project Runway Trifecta: he’s made something short, shiny and tight. And he has committed an additional sin by adding on rhinestones. Heidi says that Jesus may be able to sew, but that his taste level is questionable. (Anybody have BINGO, yet?) Amy says that her model wanted strapless to show off her scar. NinaGarcia tells her that the fabric is perfect. Georgina says that it moved beautifully. So the woman is two for three. Michael Kors says it’s elegant and modern. Anna Whomever has used ivory to create a not-a-very-good illusion racer back and neckline. Mother of the Bride on Ice? And it’s short. MK says it is not flattering. Georgina points out the obvious and says it isn’t an evening dress. May/la has draped well and made something that flattered her model’s body, but the judges feel a little guilty liking it. (Miz Shoes thinks that could be because of the previously mentioned resemblance to the drapes at the bordello frequented by Adam and Hoss and when Ben Cartwright finds out that the two older boys took Little Joe, too, consequences must be paid.)

The designers leave the runway and the judges say what they really think: Jesse’s outfit was great from the waist up, taste is something you just can’t learn, JESUS. Anna Whomever tied a belt around a bag and missed the point of the challenge. (That’ll be on next week’s downloadable Bingo cards.) Mil/ya gets high praise for reasons that totally escape Miz Shoes and always will. Except, if she had to write a paper about it for an art history class. Then, there would have been a certain whimsy in Mil/ya creating another 1960’s pop art reference, when the patron saint of all things 1960’s pop art is Andy Warhol’s CAMPBELL’S SOUP CANS!!!!! Oh, the cool, hipster irony of Our Grim Miss Brooks kills us, rilly. Hand me my black turtleneck.

Amy handled the fabric well. Wait. Didn’t we see her struggle? Maybe she used tissue paper between the layers of fabric and between the fabric, the presser foot and the feed dogs. That’s the method we use here at Tante Leah’s Handmades. Liking May/la’s work made the judges question their own taste levels. So… May/la is in. Amy is the winner. Good for Amy. It is a pretty (and easily reproduceable for sale on the Project Runway website, remember) little gown. Mil/ya is in. Jesse is in. Anna Whomever made serious misjudgments and created something unflattering. Jesus had lousy taste. Jesus is history. Man, we’re going to miss the Jesus wept/slept jokes around here. Jesus is shocked to have been eliminated, proving that he was also your “clueless about his own ability” character.

Next week someone says that the designers have used three ingredients that leave you feeling nauseous. Can’t wait for that.

So much for my weekend. I had planned to launch MildBurningSymptoms (finally), since the RLA had photographed a ton of vintage clothes. Instead, I woke up Sunday with a cold. This on top of a long week of intestinal issues. I tested negative for H-Pilori, which means not an ulcer, but a prescription for something that’s stronger than OTC Prilosec. Still on the BRAT diet. Bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. If it has no taste or color, I’m allowed to eat it. I went back to bed. Today, I finally got to see the dermatologist to have a biopsy on the tiny white bumps under my eyes that the facialist refuses to touch. While she was poking my face with anesthetics, she removed the thing on my lip that’s been living there for years, since it appeared after I bit my lip one day. Crusty eye, crusty lip, I came back home and went back to bed.

In a yellow Manhattan, Jesus weeps. OK, so not so much weeping as whining about being on the bottom again. Jesus speaks of himself in the third person. Jesse is from Orlando and is wearing a twee hat. Ping is a flake, forgetting one contact lens and her shoes. On the runway, Heidi asks the designers if they would like to meet iconic fashion designers from all times. Of course they say yes, and end up at the Metropolitan Museum in the recently refurbished Charles Englehard Court, which is filled with mannequins wearing some seriously fierce shit from the fashion collection. Is that pink cocoon coat a Poiret? Who knows, because we spend no time on them. The designers will be given an unprecedented $500, 45 minutes at Mood and two days to make their own iconic design statement. And they have to work in teams. Whoa. Bummer.

Jay, as last week’s winner, is a team leader and gets the first pick of the pack. He takes Maya. That’s the youthful but grim, black-bobbed Edith Head clone. Jesus chooses Amy, and Anthony (who has taken to wearing a twee little bow tie) grabs up Seth Aaron (Sad wanna-be rocker). Weepy McWeepersons aka Janeane opts to partner with Ben from Tampa. (Florida represent!) Mila nabs Jonathan for his construction skills. Ping ends up as a leader and picks Jesse, who is inconsolable at the horror of working with her. Emilio ends up with Anna Whoever. The designers wander around going ooh and aaaah. Yves St. Laurent! Seth Aaron gets within a micron of a Dior and bursts into tears. That’s it for Miz Shoes. She now loves Seth Aaron, sad wanna be rocker boy persona, chipped black nail polish and possibly dyed black hair and all. Madame Grès. Balenciaga.

In the Parson’s workroom, the team dynamics shape up quickly. Maya is certain that Jay is going to do basically nothing because he has immunity, which means that she’s going to have to push her ideas on him and try to be the leader. Jesse is pissy bitch who is certain that Ping is too much of a skill-less whack job who lacks focus to be the team leader. Anna Whoever is intimidated by the masterful Emilio. Jonathan assesses his team thusly: Mila is going to swan around having a vision (a fashion-forward nod to 60’s mod) and he’s going to have to be the little seamstress. Ping is unhappy with Jesse trying to constantly rein in the crazy. Jesse is unhappy that Ping is his partner/leader. They both express their unhappiness at five minute intervals for the rest of the show, both in the confessional and in the workroom. At the other end of the spectrum, Anthony and Seth Aaron are having a love fest. It’s sweet: emo rocker wanna be and Madea’s baby sister. Anthony says they’re making a black, yellow and red gown…for the VP of McDonald’s. Because everyone needs a ball gown, don’t they? Jesse is piecing together grey lace and moaning about time constraints.

Day Two

Time for Tim to come in with the 11th hour twist! Now the teams have to do a second look: a low-end knock off of one of the other team’s iconic looks. Out comes the button bag and the picks go so fast Miz Shoes can’t keep track. $50 and 20 minutes for one person at Mood, then sewing till the end of day. Needless to say, Jesse hates the fabric that Ping brings back. Maya accuses Jay of slacking off. Ben and Weepy McWeepersons are collaborating well. Jonathan is a little stressed, because Mila is making a coat, and he’s doing everything else. Seth Aaron and Anthony have a little lover’s spat, while Ping and Jesse continue to loathe each other and the other designers just want them to Shut The Fuck Up already.

Now Tim comes in for his walkabout:  Jay and Maya have time issues. Ping has cheap looking fabric that she says cost a lot of money and Jesse smugly adds that he TOLD her it sucked. TIm likes Seth Aaron and Anthony’s piece and can easily identify it as the look re-imagined on the cheap by Jonathan (and Mila). Jesse wears a twee hat, and bitches about Ping.

Day of Show

Jonathan is feeling the pain: he’s done 2/3s of the signature look and the inexpensive knock off. Mila has done the coat. Over in the girl’s dorm, two of the nameless faces are dressed in black and one of them says that they’re dressed for a funeral: the death of their hopes and dreams. Perfunctory trash talking: Emilio likes Anthony and Seth Aaron’s concept but not their execution. Jonathan and Mila discuss their division of labor and the likelihood of throwing each other under the bus (about 100% on either side). Ben’s concerned about Jesse and Ping, Ping loves her work and Jesse is merely shooting for safe. Then he sulks that it sucks to shoot so low.

The judges are Heidi, NinaGarcia, Michael Kors and some dude named Matthew Williamson who’s an acclaimed British designer of whom Miz Shoes has never heard. Let the runway commence. Anthony/Seth Aaron have done a big gown with a yellow bodice covered with black tulle. Emilio and Anna Whoever have done something short with a bolero. Mila’s vision is a pair of high waisted skinny black pants and a shiny tank under a cocoon/kimono jacket in black with big white inset circles that go through the sleeves and into the body. It is admittedly very true to her 60’s Mod, but the high waisted track pants and shiny tank deserve a Michael Kor’s disco put down. Janeane’s dress is short and black and boring and has a bolero. Miz Shoes detects a theme. Jay’s dress is glamorous, with ruffles that cascade down the front and back. Jesse has created a gorgeous bodice onto which Ping has attached her usual yardage…with big honking buttons over the ass, and the model has got it draped up around her shoulders like a steel grey Statue of Liberty.

Then the knock-off looks come out and except for Jonathan’s yellow and black baby doll dress, complete with black tulle caterpillar on the bodice which is clearly based on Seth Aaron and Anthony, they all look alike. Black sheaths with boleros. Or just dark grey sheaths. Janeane, Ben, Jesus, Amy, Emilio and Anna Whoever are safe. Ping and Anthony are the bottom two, Mila and Jay the tops.

Michael Kors leads off by loading the love onto Mila’s coat. Heidi would wear it. NinaGarcia would photograph it. As for the knock-off? Juniors! Genius, except for the baby doll silhouette, proving that one day you’re in and the next you’re out, since it wasn’t that long ago that every other winning dress on the PR runway was a cooed-over baby doll. Jay and Amy’s couture look is deemed collectible. NinaGarcia loves the bare side. Their little $47 knock off blows away the $500 original it was based on. Must have been one of the black sheaths. On the runway, Ping, Jesse and even the model whip out the long knives on each other. Jesse says he had to teach Ping to sew at the same time he was doing all the work. Ping says that Jesse was a total pain. The model(!) says that Ping didn’t even take the time to fit the potato sack she’s wearing. Oh, come on, that dress totally looked like last week’s before materials.

Anthony and Seth Aaron earn Michael Kors’ “southern cotillion from hell” and a Gone With the Wind reference. Their look for less is an acetate cocktail number from the cheap floor. NinaGarcia asks Seth Aaron why he didn’t step in to rescue this mess and he mans up and says that Anthony was the team leader and a good one, and that it was a 50/50 collaboration, and that he stands by their work. That’s it, Miz Shoes is officially on Team Seth Aaron.

The judges toss around the words edgy, chic, costumey and ill-fitting before Heidi announces that Jonathan is in and Mila is the winner. (Really? Meh.) Maya and Jay are in. Seth Aaron is in. Jesse is in. Anthony and his little bow tie are safe, and Ping is sent home to be a physical therapist and make togas for her Barbies out of scarves.

How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm?

We are back in New York where we belong. There is the clearly filtered bilious green Manhattan sky line, as opposed to the bilious green LA skyline, which needed no filter to achieve that color. There is the Atlas, where Jesus sleeps. He says he hated being in the bottom and he needs to step up his game and get more creative. Oh, lordy, says Miz Shoes, we have ourselves the Cliché Spouter. Check that off your Reality Show Bingo card. Over in the girls’ dorm, there is make up, Neitzche and a general cluelessness as to what this challenge may be.

Heidi glows on the runway as she tells Emilio that he has immunity since he won last week. He also is wearing a hat. It isn’t quite twee, but the season is young. The designers will be taking a trip to somewhere “really out there.” Clueless guesses abound, but in the event, it is a working farm. Tim and the models are in a wet, plowed field. Tim is in a suit and the models are in potato sacks. Tim reminds everyone of the old chestnut about being so beautiful that the person in question would look good in a potato sack. The challenge will be to make party dresses from the burlap sacks. AND the models will have input, being clients. AND they will wear the dresses to an industry party. AND, since they are the clients, the models will get to choose which designer they want to have clothe them. AND it’s a one-day challenge. Whew. That is a LOT of variables.

The nameless models pick their designers, some sticking with the one they worked with in episode one, and others not. Alexis opts to leave Mila (she’s the grim Edith Head clone with the dyed black bob) and try Anthony (he’s your Flamboyant Gay Character on your Reality Show Bingo Card). This leaves Mila not at all happy, and she gets less happy as model after model chooses someone other than her until she is the last kid on the playground and the last model gets stuck with her. They both pretend to be thrilled. But if I were either Alexis or Anthony, I’d sleep with one eye open, if you know what I mean. The designers and models go to the nearby farm stand to grab trim, buttons, dyes, and findings.

Ping (Whack Job with Artistic Pretentions on your Reality Show Bingo Card) wants to play with texture. Mila and Lorena continue their love fest as they decide that they have similar aesthetics. Anthony wishes Alexis had stuck with Mila because she wants flowy and sparkly and he is all: honey, it is a burlap sack. Whatchoo talkin’ bout Willis? Emilio is thrilled to have immunity on this. Ben from Florida is going to make an upside down tulip. The RLA says that the HP sketch pads are cool and tries to talk to me about Apple’s new notepad computer. He stops when I glare at him and point to the tv screen.

Mila just won’t let go, and spends her time in the work room needling Anthony and saying that working with him is Alexis’ loss. Anthony confessionalizes that Mila can kiss his and his whole family’s collective asses. All righty then. Emilio observes that burlap is hard to work with. One of the still-faceless and nameless women is making a print on her potato sack using dye and a sliced potato. OK, points for clever, or maybe we’ve just hit the Twee square.

Tim comes in for his walkabout. Pamela is doing a bustier and skirt, but as a one-piece. Tim questions the time it will take. She says she’s good. Tim loves her ombre dye job. Mila’s model wants tulle around the neck, and Tim says oh, good lord, no, and so Mila turfs the tulle. Jay is dyeing fabric and then adding trim and Tim is concerned about time management. Ping is carving burlap and draping herself again, because the dress form doesn’t let her see movement, or something. The skirt is too short and Tim reminds her that the runway is elevated and we don’t want to be seeing model hoo-ha. Ping says she’ll take care of it.

Amy’s model wants lots of ruffles and Tim is concerned that this is not reflective of Amy’s point of view. Jesus has made a pencil skirt using ribbon applied on the diagonal over the burlap to create a new, not-burlap fabric. Tim dings him for “skirting” the challenge. Ah, that Tim Gunn. He is too droll. Jesus does not listen to Tim. Cross off Stupid Git Who Doesn’t Listen to Tim on your Reality Show Bingo Card.

The models come in and Jesus tells his girl that she needs to sell it on the runway because he totally screwed the pooch. Ping realizes that she may have problems with her skirt. Anthony is still rolling his eyes over his model’s taste and Mila is still gloating that she is glad, glad, glad that Alexis dissed her and went with Anthony. I still wouldn’t let her stand too close behind me. Jay is distressed that his dye has turned his burlap navy blue and not whatever shade he thought it was going to be.

And, crap. That Blowfly skank is still wandering around naked and smug. You’d think they could have gotten another commercial in the can by now, wouldn’t you? Or if Blowfly is all that, couldn’t she have picked something out and gotten it shipped? Oh well. It’s the day of the show. Some dude is dithering over shoes or boots, shoes or boots. Jay is freaking out. Janeane (Reality Show Bingo Card square for Cries All The Time) has lots of work to do and is nervous. Two hours for hair and make up. Use the Blowfly wall,

thoughtfully.

Runway. Judges are NinaGarcia, Michael Kors looking much less orange and Lauren Hutton, who has NOT HAD WORK DONE and thank the lord for that. She is fabulous.

Anthony’s model walks first. The dress he’s made is sweet and looks soft. Ping’s model exposes her ass crack down and back. She appears to be wearing a lamp shade for a skirt. Uh, not pretty. Ben from Florida has made a pink dress that does look a little floaty. Mila has made something nasty with metal all over it and seams and whatever. The metal strips don’t actually line up in any meaningful way. Anna Marie, whoever she is, doesn’t get a legible note. Is she the potato print girl?

Jesse has made pants and a vest, with color trim peeking out here and there. Seth, who dresses funny but seems a lot nicer human being than the person he reminds everyone of (Jeffrey the Pin-Headed Shmoo, aka the angry little peanut) has done some sort of Judy Jetson dress with an attached hoodie and a lampshade skirt. But this is a boned and bell-shaped lampshade, not Ping’s stiff oval shade. Amy’s dress has a handkerchief hem and the burlap still looks like burlap, but in a good way.

Jay’s dress has a tank top and a full, tutu skirt with the fluffy stuff made of applied and shredded burlap circles. It looks an awful lot like Christopher Straub’s stuff from early in last season. Emilio has done a sheath dress with interest added with vertical stripes of color. We don’t see enough to tell if this is applied ribbon, or dyed, pieced strips. Jesus has a dark brown burlap tank over his acid green ribbon skirt. There is a patch of the burlap randomly applied to one ass cheek of the skirt. Jonathon (who may be the boots or shoes boy) has made a slip dress with a vertical stripe of lace down the middle of the front. Maya has some shapeless thing with color. Pamela’s burlap looks like denim, laces in the back and the skirt makes the model’s butt look huge.

Pamela, Mila, Ping, Jay, Jesus and Amy are the top and bottom designers. Michael Kors loves the shredded fluffy stuff on Jay’s dress. Transformative! Pamela’s dress is too short, too tight and not sophisticated, according to NinaGarcia. MK says that the plain potato sack would look better than this, but allows as how the dye job was spectacular. Mila says that she visualized the color. Heidi loves it, of course, because it is short, tight and shiny. MK has issues with the gappy fit on the bodice, but Heidi says it’s sexy. Ping cries. Heidi clocks Jesus over the percentage of burlap vs not burlap. NinaGarcia says it needs to be cooler and younger. Michael notes that the color blocking doesn’t work and that he gave his model an asymetrical ass. NinaGarcia says that Jesus has awful color sense. Amy has done a cowl neck and an open back. Michael Kors says that it’s flirty and sophisticated, but still burlap! Is Ping really unable to understand English or is it a ploy? Lauren Hutton loves her potential, at any rate.

Amy is in. Jay turned a potato sack into a perfect cocktail dress and is our winner. Mila is called edgy and sophisticated (but not by Miz Shoes, who stands by her opinion that Mila’s piece was poorly constructed and lame) and she is in. Ping is in (and again, Miz Shoes thinks that Lauren Hutton pulled hard for her). Pamela made a mess, and her taste level is questionable, as is her ability to be fashion forward. Jesus missed the point and made a mundane and matronly mess. Nevertheless, Jesus is saved and Pamela is Aufsie Daisy.

Next week, a team challenge and NinaGarcia says “both of these dresses are ugly.”

“He will need to be fed once a day. He prefers feline supplement number 25.”

“I understand.”

“And he will require water. And you must provide him with a sandbox. And you must talk to him. Tell him he is a pretty cat. And a good cat.”

“I will feed him.”

“Perhaps that will be enough.”

- Data and Worf, as Data asks Worf to take care of Spot (Star Trek, the Next Generation)

Saturday, we took Ming to the vet for his final visit. Here we are, sitting in the sun. Ever since that episode ran, I made a point of telling my cats that they were pretty cats. And good cats. I told that to Ming as I petted him.

This is the cairn we built over his grave. There is a blue jay feather, piercing a hibiscus leaf, and some flowers. I put a spool of thread in with him, because he had to have three separate surgeries over the years to remove the wads of thread he’d managed to eat. Where he is now, he can eat all the thread he wants. Ming also has a little bat about toy with feathers. The Egyptians got it right about cats.

And because I swore I would do this this year, and because even in sadness there is always brightness, here is the afghan I’ve been working on. Not bad for only two weeks of knitting.

Who knows, maybe I’ll even get my Project Runway recap up before the second episode.

So much for photodocumenting my weekend output. So much for blogging regularly. I have to say that it is so much harder to blog when one’s actual job requires actual work. Not to say I miss the old pointy haired boss, because that would not be true. I just miss sitting around on the company dime, working on my personal blog. Which I am doing right now.

My little cat, Ming the Merciless, is terminal. We are doing hospice. By we, of course, I mean the RLA and myself. We let him eat what ever he wants. We carry him around outside for fresh air. I’ve been giving him sub-Q fluids twice a day to keep him hydrated. I take him in the shower room and run the water as hot as it gets, with Kiss Your Face cold and flu soap on a sponge until the room fills with steam, and Ming and I sit there and have a vaporizer session. He’s allowed to sleep with me under the covers.

He’s just a little guy, and every day with us is a good day. I’m in no hurry to send him off to the other side of the rainbow bridge. When the time comes, we’ll all know.

Of course, there is some trepidation over this in my own superstitious heart. My old cat developed leukemia at the same time as my father, and I had to put him down (the cat) a month before my dad passed away. Now Ming has a neurological problem and has gone blind in one eye and is living day to day. My mother is blind in one eye and living day by day with end-stage Alzheimer’s. You see where I’m going with this, I’m sure.

Anyway, the boss has entered the building. Time to work for the man. Photos later, I promise.

The RLA and I have a tradition: on New Year’s Eve, we stay home and cook together, then lock the animals inside and hide from the falling bullets. We watch movies and go to bed after we watch the ball drop in Times Square. On New Year’s Day, we listen to the Moody Blues. All day and all night and probably the next day.

This year, we went to see Avatar in 3-D on an I-Max screen. I’m still conflicted. I loved the movie, and yet, it was an empty enjoyment, like the popcorn I ate. There were visuals that were magic. The flora and fauna of the imaginary Pandora were believable and beautiful. But that was it. Such plot as there was was lifted wholesale from Dances With Wolves, Pocohontas, Moby Dick and Apocolypse Now. Sort of. Toss in a handful of “noble savage” mythos and a shake of anti-war (specifically anti Bush’s war) and you have it. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that, it was just… tissue. Disposable entertainment that left no mark in my mind, except for the visceral and visual. The RLA compared this to seeing the original Star Wars for the first time, and the feeling that you were in the presence of a new era in film making. And yeah, I can see that, but no. Star Wars, for all of the bad dialog and recycled mythos, had a much deeper soul and resonance than Avatar.

That doesn’t mean I won’t want to own a copy for home. But there has to be more than just a two-hour trip to another world. There have to be characters that you care about and frankly, the only ones that I wanted to see more of were the Etruscan-style horses. I would love to see a coffee table book on the planet that the animators created, but the buffed up Smurfs? Meh.

Over the long weekend, I spun up another five yarns. I made a lasagna, and a pot of cabbage soup (it’s still simmering as I type). For the coming year, I decided to try and photograph everything I make each weekend, from fiber to food, and post the results each Monday. We’ll see. In May, I have a spinning workshop in Sarasota. Later in May, the Surrogate Daughter Number Two graduates college, and I am expected to be in attendance (and will be proudly). In June, we have the annual week at the shore. In August RJ and I are scheduled to go to New York for Blogher 10.

I am determined this year to launch Mild Burning Symptoms, with or without the assistance of the RLA. I am determined to reduce the fabric stash in my studio, whether by selling it off on MBS, or by making quilts, I just need to empty the space.

We’ll see how that goes.

Finally, I went to see my Mummy today. She held my hand tightly and said “baby.” I didn’t stop crying for five minutes. And that is why tonight, I am making cabbage soup. It was one of my favorite dishes that she’d make in the winter. It’s a pure peasant dish: cabbage, onions, beef bones, carrots and tomatoes. There are brown sugar, sour salt, lemon juice and raisins. It is deep and sweet and sour, all at the same time. I can smell it simmering in the kitchen.

Happy new year to all, and may the second decade of the 21st century suck less than the first.

Tante Leah, Tallis Maker to the Stars

Or, you know, I would be if I could just get a star to accept the gift of one. I’m not going to name names here, but a certain Rock & Roll Hall of Fame drummer (or more likely, his agent) just refused this one.

With all of the nice Jewish boys out there who are currently hot comedic stars, you would think that at least one of them would like to upgrade his tallis from the one he got when he was Bar Mitzvah’d. Steven Spielberg has how many kids? Surely one of them is turning 13 and needs a tallis. Why not a Tante Leah custom design?

Why? Because nobody knows I’m out here, making the most elegant, individual and did I say beautiful tallit around. I’ve decided that the way to fix this glaring omission is to get myself a celebrity endorser.

The question is who. Adam Sandler? Andy Samberg? Paulie Shore? (Is he even still around?) Sarah Silverman? Who represents the quality and sophistication of a Tante Leah product? Tim Gunn? Well, yeah, probably, but he’s not Jewish and I don’t think I could afford him anyway.

After much thought and deliberation, I am convinced that the celebrity endorser Tante Leah’s Handmades needs is Ben Stiller. So here’s the offer. In exchange for Mr. Stiller allowing me to use a photo of him in a Tante Leah tallis, with an appropriate and enthusiastic endorsement (ex: Round for round, and pound for pound, there’s no finer tallis in town) I will donate 10% of my gross to Mr. Stiller’s Stillerstrong charity. (This could add up to bupkis, or if Mr. Stiller does his job well, it could make a decent donation, say $250 a year.)

What seems like years ago, but was really only a month, I joined the Cobaya Gourmet Guinea Pigs, and underground foodie affair here in Miami. I grabbed Star and the two of us signed on for the VIP (Very Important Pig) Roast, starring the culinary stylings of Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog. It was advertised as an Iron Chef-style affair, with a main course of roast whole pig and five other dishes made of various and sundry pig parts. Well, I am all about the pig, so I was first in line for that. Literally. Star and I were the second and third to arrive at Harvey’s on the Bay, a fabulous and undiscovered neighborhood bar housed in the back side of an American Legion Hall up on Biscayne Bay in the still-ungentrified 60s.

The feast began with chicharones, or cracklins as we call them in the Deep South. Rendered and fried tidbits of pig skin. In my culture, we do the same thing with poultry skin and it’s called grebenes. Same thing, different animal: fried heart attack on a plate.

The cracklins were accompanied by little cocktails made of organic cherry syrup, seltzer and moonshine. Tasted like Dr. Brown’s Cherry Soda, but left you face-planted on the concrete.

We then all trooped outside to meet the guest of honor, and watch as Chef Jeremiah prepared the caja china and loaded up the pig.

Back inside for some Chinese/North Carolina char sui bao. Chinese pork buns, but with a very un-Chinese bar-b-que style filling.

More like a Carolina, vinegar-based pork butt. Syringes of soy sauce were provided, and there were a couple of hot sauces as well. The prawn-chili sauce was particularly lovely.

These little guys were followed by something described as a Mexican/Viet Namese fusion. It was a soft taco, filled with the most gelatinous thing I’ve ever eaten. I was already started to head into a pork-induced coma, and so I missed the details. It was trotter meat or pork cheeks or something. Whatever. It was, taste-wise, one of the purest flavors of pig imaginable. This may have been my favorite dish of the afternoon, despite the icky mouth feel. The tacos were topped with a carrot and cabbage slaw, very sharp and vinegary and healthy splashes of those chili sauces.

After that, we moved on to pork bellies, and that is where I drew the line in the sand, pig-part wise. While I found the images of the pig nipples fascinating, and couldn’t shoot enough frames of them, the amount of fat and soft skin were beyond me to even attempt to eat. Chef J sliced up the bellies and made Cuban-style sandwiches, with pickles and mustard and crusty Cuban bread.

By now, the pig in the box was getting done, so we went out to check.

Yep, as the old Coppertone ads reminded us, it was Time to Turn. The pig got turned, coals were added and back we went for the next round of parts. Baby brauts or hot dogs? The skins were crisp and the meat juicy and the spicy mustard was a perfect compliment. I skipped the bun. Why waste time with bread when there is that magnificent pig roasting out back?

Finally, the pig was done. Chef Jeremiah brought it in and carved it up.

Plated, and with a side of sweet potato flan, this was the best roast pig, ever. (Except, and I’m sorry, Chef, but this is true, for the one that my friend’s father roasted all those years ago, on a set of old bedsprings, over a fire pit. Said piglet was the product of a wild boar getting to a domesticated female on a flower farm up in Stuart. That is the roast pig gold standard.) Still and all, I couldn’t have asked for more or better food and company. I’ll be back for more of the Cobaya Guinea Pig events. Next time, I’ll bring my own, titanium spork.

I had a doctor’s appointment last week, a follow-up to the diagnosis of low thyroid activity. So my doctor is happy with how things are going, and as he opens the examining room door to take me down the hall to the lab for my bloodwork, he says “Let’s head up to the lab” and because I’ve seen Rocky Horror enough to know how to do the Time Warp (It’s just a jump to the left), I replied with “And see what’s on the slab.” This made us both very happy. So I’m sitting and knitting and waiting for the nurse to do the blood draw, when I hear the girls up at the front desk start to complain to another one of the staff members to stop changing the office radio to a country and western station. She replies that this is Taylor Swift and she’s awesome and they need to broaden their horizons.

This leads my doctor to pop out of his office and chide the young woman that she’s one to talk about broadening horizons when she was the person who thought Bruce Springsteen did a lame half-time show at the Superbowl.

I’ll pause for the enormity of that to sink in.

In the event, I let out an audible and completely involuntary gasp and jumped out of my chair and ran out into the hall where this conversation was taking place. I pointed my finger at the girl and said “Blasphemer!” She didn’t bat an eye. No, in fact, she said that it was a weak performance, that the Boss is a talentless old hack and that she’d never seen anything worse in her life. At that point, it was a good thing that I’d jumped up and left my knitting needles in the lab.

I pointed my finger at her again and began to yell “SHUN!!!! SHUN THE UNBELIEVER!!!!” as I chased her down the hall and into another office. My doctor found this whole exchange humorous, which is a good thing I suppose or I might be blogging from a padded cell.

I went to my childhood home on Thanksgiving day, for the annual feast, now held at the Girl Cousin’s home. For twenty years or more, it was my mother’s feast, and the family, and the widows and the orphans all piled in. It went from a sit-down dinner with the good china to a wild and wooly buffet off paper plates. Along with Passover, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Food and family and both in wretched excess.

This year was subdued, as the Girl Cousin’s mom was in the hospital with pneumonia. We took her a plate of all the home-made goodies and she sat up in a chair and teased me and ate everything. Then the sun set, literally, and the dementia came back and the anxiety and anger and the family decided to get her out of hospital and into the local hospice house, until she could be stabilized and sent home.

Only the first part happened. My Auntie Em went to the hospice house and 48 hours later, she was gone. She left this world surrounded by her family, which is exactly how she lived her life. The RLA and I drove home to Miami, switched out the clothes in our suitcase and drove back north for her funeral. There was more to it than that, of course: I had been called for jury duty, we had doctors’ appointments and the stupid cat had to go back to the vet with his chronic weepy ear.*

Back north, funeral, back south, back to work. And now my mother has “issues”. I have a new pack of cigarettes and a full bottle of scotch. More later, I promise. It’s just that I am finding it hard to be amusing these days.

* The vet says that this is medically known as “squishy ear syndrome”. He also says that Ming has a “chronic, pernicious exudate”. I say that needs to be the name of my next imaginary punk band…at least Pernicious Exudate.

I have a friend, a long-time friend, and I talk about her here now and then. She’s The Coolest Person In The World TM. We were neighbors in New York City a million years ago, and while we haven’t stayed in touch in anything resembling a regular way, we are still friends.

In June, I bought an i-phone, and my Twitter habit began shortly after that. I started following famous people (Lauren Bacall, Brent Spiner & Kevin Smith). I started following other bloggers (SinPantalones, Quisp & RJFlamingo). And I started following The Coolest Person In The World’s daughter, who is, like her mother, very cool and very funny.

Once in a while I would reply to her tweets. I loved reading about her life in New York City and about her mother: what she was cooking, where they were going, the weather out in the Hamptons. It made me feel closer to my friend than I had in years. It also, quite honestly, made me feel a little bit creepy and voyeuristic, but what the hell, you know? I mean, I’ve know her since she was a twinkle in her papa’s eye, it’s not like I was some Aqualung-type pedophile stalker. And anyway, she’s in college and aspiring to be a stand up comedian, so having strangers read her Twitter feed is something that she should expect.

Several weeks ago, the daughter blocked me from her Twitter feed. It was a surprise and made me feel a lot creepier. I am not exactly hurt or anything, but I miss reading about her mother. It was like being neighbors again, not friends separated by miles and years.

RJ hit me up with a meme. I am not totally averse to memes, and since she singled me out not once, but twice on this, I’m going to play. The instructions say to use one word answers and to tag another 6 bloggers. I won’t tag, but feel free to play, leaving a comment with a link to your answers.

1. Where is your cell phone? purse

2. Your hair? shagged

3. Your mother? zombie

4. Your father? dead

5. Your favorite food? Indian

6. Your dream last night? boring

7. Your favorite drink? martini

8. Your dream/goal? creating

9. What room are you in? studio

10. Your hobby? fiber

11. Your fear? powerlessness

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here

13. Where were you last night? here

14. Something you aren’t? unmemorable

15. Muffins? no

16. Wish list item? Paris

17. Where did you grow up? Stuart

18. Last thing you did? drink

19. What are you wearing? dress

20. Your TV? off

21. Your pets? varied

22. Friends? special

23. Your life? feh

24. Your mood? feh

25. Missing someone? Jayne

26. Vehicle? Smart

27. Something you’re not wearing? shoes

28. Your favorite store? Picasso’sMoon (I had to cheat, it has two names)

29.Your favorite color? purple

30. When was the last time you laughed? today

31. Last time you cried? yesterday

32. Your best friend? Renee

33. One place you go to over and over again? Sarasota

34. One person who e-mails you regularly? Bobby

35. Favorite place to eat? Gil’s

I was making copies of advertising tear sheets the other day, standing at the copy machine and daydreaming, when the following caught my eye. It is reprinted with permission from Southern California Physician magazine, the November 2009 issue. This magazine probably doesn’t have the distribution of say, the New York Times, or even Weekly World News, but this essay is too important not to share.

Silence is Consent

Speaking up for the public option, by Howard L. Lang, MD

I cannot remain silent. When I read the opinion articles by Drs. Krauss and DiLibero and the predictable answers to the interview with the Libertarian Cato Institute in the September issue, I felt compelled to respond.

The pigeonholing of “government control of health care” puts ideas into a prefabricated box that has infected and distorted the debate about the public option. Simply put, the public option is nothing more than an option for consumers what would expand choice in the insurance marketplace. Without a public option what will restrain the insurance industry? The public option is the key to expanding coverage and choice, bringing down costs and holding the insurance industry accountable. It is not a “government takeover” of health care. Let us not have these labels blind us to the facts.

The facts in the current legislation, as reported in Medscape Business of Medicine, are as follows:

To put it simply, only consumers who want to enroll in a government-run health plan would do so. Anyone who preferred private insurance could get it.

Government can enhance human freedom and give people options they would not otherwise have. When you consider the involvement of government in K-12 education, helping students to attend college, and unemployment compensation, you realize that the public insurance option is entirely consistent with the American tradition of using government to open new avenues of choice and opportunity.

The fate of the public option as of late October is still undetermined. There is a public option in the three committees of the House and in the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. There is no public option in the Senate Finance Committee bill.

There is strong support for the public option in the physician community as well as in the public. A recent poll of physicians funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that 63 percent of physicians supported a plan that contained a public and private alternative with 27 percent supporting a private-only option that would provide subsidies for low income individuals to purchase insurance. The researchers found that 58 percent of physicians surveyed supported expanding Medicare eligibility to those between the ages of 55 and 64. A recent national poll showed that 70 percent of Americans favor a public option as a choice.

Here are more unpleasant facts, not opinion. A Harvard study revealed that 14,000 people per day lose their health insurance and 62 percent of all bankruptcies are from medical costs. This breaks down to 120 people every day, 3,750 people per month, 5 people per hour and 1 American every 12 minutes. All dead because of a broken delivery system which is based on profit, not caring.

The public option uses government as a nudge toward greater competition. The public option is a monopoly and monopsony buster. The 2008 update of Competition in Health Insurance: A Comprehensive Study of U.S. Markets presents new data on the degree of competition in different regions of the country. The study is intended to help identify areas where consolidation among health insurers may have harmful impacts on consumers, providers of care and the economy. Market shares and concentration measures are presented for 314 metropolitan areas and 42 states. This study finds that the vast majority of markets are highly concentrated and are dominated by one or two health insurers. These findings, coupled with higher insurance premiums, higher profits, lower scope of benefits and high barriers to entry, leads to the conclusion that health insurers are exercising market power in many parts of the country. Without a public option providing competition, more of our fellow citizens will be uninsured and more will die.

Another issue is cost to consumers and government which the public option will help moderate. In the October Editors note, one part of the cost issue is addressed. I will add that, as reported in teh Washington Post health care premiums have risen by 300 percent over the past 30 years after adjusting for inflation. Hourly earning for workers, adjusted for inflation, have fallen and any wage increases have been consumed by health care costs. The costs for the approximately 46 million uninsured are shifted to the insured. According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, this raises premiums for the average family by $1100 a year.

When we look at the entire picture of our health care delivery system it is clear that substantive reform is absolutely necessary. We are talking about the fundamental principles of social justice. Not only would collapse of health reform be a political and policy failure, but a profound moral failure and a blot on our great nation. How we provide health care says a great deal about our country’s heart and soul. Has our soul departed?

The Ayn Rand and Gordon Gecko philosophy of “Greed is Good” is the antitheses of what this country should stand for.

Thucydides was once asked: “When will there be justice in Athens?” His reply: “There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.”

I am outraged!

Howard L. Lang, MD is Past President of the California Medical Association and past chair of the AMA Medical Staff Section.

Yeah. Pass that along.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s just get this over with. Miz Shoes was disinclined to expend the energy on notes, so this may not be the most accurate recap you ever read. The final adequate three have been chosen and given a meager pittance to create a collection to show in Bryant Park. Tim is subjected to humiliation, delivering forced repartee with Heidi and then having to dance The Bump with her behind the scrim. It’s embarrassing.

Further injury and insult takes the form of a flowery apron, tied neatly over his black suit by Carol Hannah and her mother, as Tim makes biscuits with the women. That is neither a metaphor nor a symbol of something deeper. Sometimes a biscuit is only a biscuit. Carol Hannah has been inspired by a visit to the Duke Campus at night. Apparently, they have some drab grey topiary at Duke.

Next Tim meets the ur-creaky old elevator you’ve ever seen in a horror/action flick and visits Althea in her gritty brick loft, a relic from the days when Dayton was a boom town. Miz Shoes cannot speculate on the decade that may have been. Althea has been inspired by something or another and is making the same black sequin waiter’s jacket she made all season. There are more pants. There are more oversized knits and drab colors.

Finally Tim is allowed back onto the island of Manhattan where he is taken to Irina’s favorite restaurant and he (presumably), but not the viewers, is introduced to everyone at the table. Irina’s sisters all look exactly like her, and she is the clone of her mother. Everyone gets subtitles, and it’s kind of awesome and kind of insulting. Her mother looks like she’s wearing the sweater Irina made for the Aspen challenge. It’s the same color, and has the same cowl neck.

Irina is inspired by New York City, specifically, Coney Island. She has made drab grey tee shirts with the iconic image of the Coney Island ferris wheel. Everything else is black, including the oversized knits. Later, we see Tim telephone her to say that the producers and the lawyers have determined that that iconic image is copyrighted by someone else, and she doesn’t have permission to use it. Irony? Anyone? Anyone?

Finally, it is fashion week and the girls meet again at the hotel. Irina and Althea sit in awkward silence for hours waiting for Carol Hannah, who never shows because she has a stomach virus. But she recovers enough to show up for model casting. Then she throws up. Then Michael Kors and NinaGarcia come

to give some last minute advice. Irina ignores what NinaGarcia tells her, because what would NinaGarcia know about fashion editorials?

Carol Hannah is still sick when Heidi and Tim come to give them the annual Surprise Thirteen Look At The Last Minute For Drama (trademark). To help them, the last three designers thrown off the show get to come and eat ashes and crow. Althea snaps up Logan who is still bow-legged, but no longer wearing the magic shiny pants. Irina tells Gordana to come to Mama, and Gordana pretends joy as she steps to her side. Carol Hannah is so happy not to be puking on national television, that she welcomes Christopher.

Irina pretends to think that Althea somehow channeled her from afar and stole her ideas. They both have knits. Gordana asks for a crochet hook while at Mood. Over on Ravelry, there is debate about the knits. Althea said that she herself had been knitting, whereas Irina merely called hers handknit. So did Irina knit, or did she hire someone to knit for her?

Next week, Irina styles her models like Jillian from Season 4, and we find out who won and like baseball fans everywhere, sigh, well, there’s always next season. It has to be better than this one.